Freedom of Information Response Regarding BE Withdrawal of Letter Confirming Income.

[007 RED]

Following the BE notification on the 8 October 2018 that they are withdrawing the letter confirming income I submitted a formal request to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requesting the following information:

 

1..... The number of letters which the British Embassy (Bangkok) had provided to UK national during the past three years (broken down by year), and

 

2.... Copies of all minutes of meetings, notes, correspondence (including emails) and conversation recordings between Embassy staff and Thai Authorities, and between Embassy staff which relate to the withdrawal of the provision of letters confirming income to British Nationals.

 

The FCO has responded to my request and I attach a pdf copy of their reply. 

 

I have already replied and requested that they release the numbers of UK nationals who have been provided with letters by the BE Bangkok confirming income during the past three years. 

 

With regard to the second part of my original request, I will be revising my original request to limit the timescale of any communication to the period May and June 2018 which I believe is the period during which the contentious meeting with Thai Immigration took place.

 

As, and when I get any further response from the FCO I will update this post.

1094 18 Response S12.pdf

[ubonjoe]

You got the response I expected you would get.

"I can confirm that the FCO does hold information relevant to your request."

[007 RED]

29 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

You got the response I expected you would get.

"I can confirm that the FCO does hold information relevant to your request."

It does not surprise me that they have confirmed that they hold the information requested and have used the exemption that to locate and retrieve it will exceed the 'Appropriate Limit'.

 

Now the 'fun' bit comes in getting 'blood out of the stone'.  Please don't hold your breath because their next tack will be that they cannot release the information because it will adversely affect international relations.

[JackThompson]

2 hours ago, 007 RED said:

With regard to the second part of my original request, I will be revising my original request to limit the timescale of any communication to the period May and June 2018 which I believe is the period during which the contentious meeting with Thai Immigration took place.

Run it to the present - or at least through the announcement.  The announcement came later, which may indicate there were ongoing discussions after the meeting in May.

Edited November 8, 2018 by JackThompson

[007 RED]

51 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

Run it to the present - or at least through the announcement.  The announcement came later, which may indicate there were ongoing discussions after the meeting in May.

My original request was very open – no start or end date.  They (the FCO) have indicated that in order to comply with my request it is going to take them longer than 3.5 man days to gather the information and have, therefore, refused to comply with this element of my request on the basis of an exemption (Section 12) which is provided within the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). 

 

As a result, I have responded and limited the request to cover the time period that the initial meeting with Immigration was reported to have occurred.  If that information is forthcoming then there is nothing to say that a follow-up request cannot be submitted covering different dates.

 

My own personal opinion (based upon having to deal with FOIA requests in my pre-retirement life), is that obtaining the information being requested is in fact very simple – you ask the person at the BE BKK who is responsible for dealing Thai Immigration (there is only likely to be a couple of people who fit that bill) do they have any minutes and/or correspondence/emails relating to this subject?  If the answer is yes, you instruct them to produce the information.  It should only take the person at the Embassy a couple of hours to locate all the relevant file(s), particularly as the Embassy should have an exemplary filing system ????.

 

I am of the view that the BE does hold the minutes/correspondence/emails, but they are going to be very reluctant to disclose that information and will no doubt use another exemption (FOIA Section 27 – International Relations).  In which case I am quite happy to take them on at their own game.  As I said previously, don’t hold your breath, this is going to be like getting blood out of a stone.